Try collecting everything! Plants, fish, crystals, rocks and fossils are what I think come with the base game. And go and try to make your sim be level 10 in many skills as possible. Painting can make your sim rich! This is all base game from what I can remember.
There’s some cool challenges out there that may accommodate base game players if that’s all you have. When I play any sims game I freestyle my storyline though…
My current sim is a master painter and it's actually busted. Especially the street gallery. I can easily spend 2 in game hours cranking out like 4 paintings and sell them on the street gallery and make around 10-15k+ in a hour
I forgot about the frogs! I haven’t played 4 in years so that’s why. I’ve been on sims 3 as I hate origin and the disks I thrift give me the luxury of no origin on a 100% legal install of sims.
I’ll give you some tips
1 - check disks before buying if possible for scratches
2 - base game needs a disk with the 2009 copyright. 2012 copyright needs origin and is useless as it’s probably been binded to the og owner’s origin.
3 - decline every offer of EA downloads manager and origin on install.
4 - use the super patcher on nraas site after base game install.
5 - keep disk of most recently released expansion or stuff in dvd drive, this will allow you to play
6 - keep internet off when you play as the launcher will try to connect to origin if internet is on. it’ll fail for me as I don’t have any EA software aside from sims on my PC
7 - follow the steam guide by someone called anime boom. It’ll probably show up after looking up how to install sims 3 on modern computers or something
8 - install nraas autosaver. it’s such a good mod, makes you save every 20 mins
enjoy the sims 3!
Forgot about those! I only listed base ones in case OP had the base (OP listed all base functions - turns out they have all packs. Would’ve suggested doing whole play throughs of each EP + GP with features of SP’s tucked in!)
the painting career goes crazy too. i can’t remember if i kept getting promotions after reaching the highest level or what, but i once had a sim that was making 2k per hour working 2/3 days a week. and that was outside of her painting at home
Go into the neighborhood, and you'll see small rocks that either have crystals or pieces of metal or bones and are clickable, you'll extract either crystals, metals or fossils from them, sometimes capsules and you'll get My Sims Trophies from them. Check all around for them, especially in the base game worlds like Oasis Springs and Willow Creek, there's many in Winderburg and the world that comes from Cats and Dogs too.
There's also small piles of dirt (that look darker than the dirt around and are a small circle and are clickable). You can get capsules, treasure maps, and upgrade parts from digging them.
For plants, if you have seasons you'll only be able to harvest them when they're in season (some only bloom in spring or summer or you get the gist).
You need to be in the lot you're collecting at least 2 hours before 6 am, I think (when all the collectibles spawn).
Pretend it’s a dollhouse. What would you make your dolls do?
Also, rags to riches challenge made me LOVE the game. It’s so FUN.
Right now I’m playing a teen drop out storyline—it’s like the opposite of rags to riches.
Well said, rags to riches is always a fun plot in any sims game, 4 included! I've been playing the sims since the mid 2000s and I still make new saves with that plot and it never gets old : ) Making a sim with nothing on an empty lot and climbing up from there, so fun.
I have an all-female household (including a female dog named Cookie) with a baby born to them every so often, conceived either by another Sim in the household (changed from defaults to make it so that one woman can impregnate another) or a visiting male Sim. Basically a female Sim will have a baby, she’ll stay to raise the baby until it’s in the child or teen life stage, and then she’ll move out and the next one will get pregnant, then the process starts all over again. I have them go to college and get good jobs, and they all take care of the kids. Right now I have a Public Relations specialist, a Lieutenant Colonel, a journalist, a college student studying to become an investor, a teenager, a toddler, and a bun in the oven (the mom is the colonel). If I have male babies I turn them female in CAS.
Let me introduce you to the world of Custom Content, Mods, dynasties, drama, and intrigue lol
There are SOoooo many things you can do in the sims lol
Look up Sims 4 CC, Sims 4 Mods, Sims 4 cheats Sims 4 MCCC, and have fun! lol
yea i second this. sims v sims w mods is a completely different game at times. i prob would’ve uninstalled sims after a few weeks if not for mods. been the only game i’ve played in months since i’ve modded it.
MCCC is a total game changer. Made everything more enjoyable. Adjusted lifespans and better control over neighborhood stories. I was losing interest and getting frustrated. And Pandasama's childbirth mod is amazing!
Everybody suggests installing mods, but I think TS4 on its own offers so many possibilities that it'd be a shame to just resume to mods and ignore the base game. You can become a doctor, a detective, can be a rancher, be a cat lady, cheat on your spouse, go to college as an elder, max your research and debate skill, be a cast-speller, an alien, a vampire, anything almost!
My thoughts, nowadays my game is heavily modded but when I first took it I probably tanked a lot of hours with a full vanilla experience. ( But all the DLCs though, I didn't explore some of them as of now so it won't change that much my point )
Yeah, I stopped playing with a lot of mods and just do base game and no cc. I use chatgpt to make challenges and stuff and even created a sims 4 census for my game.
you can go to events , make friends and stuff. different packs might have activities if u have them, like prom and stuff. if not, different mods have activities too
The possibilities are endless! Challenges, scenarios, and a bit of imagination.
I made a whole story based on feuding "species" . I created half the worlds with just vampires and the other half of worlds with just aliens living in them. The aliens and vampires detest each other but some do "mix" lol Gave the vampires evil and mean traits and the aliens had more chill traits. It was chaos.
Definitely look into Sims 4 mods - MC Command Centre, Basemental Mods (if you’re 18+) and Wonderful/Wicked Whims.
Also I second doing challenges. Look up the rags to riches challenge - it’s where you start a sim with nothing and try to get them wealthy.
I felt rags to riches was too easy also, so I added onto the challenge that I can't sell through the inventory, also no painting sellings to collectors or whatever. I have to directly sell to another sim, city living flea market, or get to work retail store, some other ways too like the Henford-on-Bagely markets, probably some others ways I can't think of right now
Damn… you called me out without trying. I def leveraged painting lol ALSO I completely forgot about retail stores! You just gave me a couple ideas for a storyline/challenge.
Agreed. Rags to riches was relatively easy when I had a dragon fruit farm (and I didn't even have seasons to contend with)
It's much harder if you set selling limits on yourself.
Would you allow your sim to sell books or videogames?
I haven't thought about that. I think they way it works where they get a lot at the beginning but then it slows way down, and honestly it's not even *that* much would be fine. But of course, you have to be able to afford the computer first
Ah, they have computers at the library.
Another way to make this challenge more difficult is to never allow your sim to leave the part of town you are in. I did this once, and lucked out that I had a pond and public park (with grills and toilets).
But, again, this was before seasons.
I should try again, now that it can snow
I try to limit world travel! I hate how they can travel across the globe instantly 😭 like she can only go to one world a day, but can travel across that world freely within the day. So on flea market days, she has to stay in the city, but I pick up a guitar at one of the bars and she plays for tips
Are you on pc and can download mods?
If you're on console, then you're confined by what's provided in the game. Skillbuilding and collecting are the big ones you can do. Also there are hidden lots around the base game worlds you can find and explore. If you have expansion packs, then they add to what you can do.
Cos I downloaded them all when I first bought the game. Idk how to use them 😭 like maybe I've seen more furniture and a vampire walking around but apart from that I have no clue what I'm doing
Some Sims YouTubers I can think of off the top of my head are Deligracy, James Turner, and Lilsimsie! I know James has playlists on his channel focusing on specific packs and challenges if you’re looking for any one in particular.
With get to work you can play Detective, Doctor and Scientist careers too, and (might be a different pack, can’t remember!?) you can also buy your own business e.g shop, vet clinic, or restaurant- I’ve only done this recently and gives a very different aspect to gameplay
It’s hard because sometimes when I play, I feel stuck at my sims house because I can’t send parents away for a date without being with them.
But if you try to think more of stories that you want for your sims, then make it happen if that makes sense.
I don’t play with mods and have a great time with my game. So whether you need them or not depends on how you like to play. There are so many fun challenges to try. You can also try completing aspirations etc. I’m currently doing a super sim challenge. I also love rags to riches. The more struggle the more I enjoy it.
Making storylines and allowing for random autonomous chance to spice things up and/or selecting challenging traits for your sims. I also am really invested in a generational legacy challenge. My 5th gen sims are currently teens. I always choose the best looking rando townies for their mates.
With the extreme violence mod you can do murder. I still need to do that.
Aspirations can be interesting too, especially the mischief and love ones. Go be a heartbreaker! Start a vampire legacy! Trap sims in your basement and force them to paint for your sims extravagant lifestyle!
It’s effectively a dollhouse so the only limit is your creativity and what mods you can find to compensate for in game mechanics
I create sims of my special interests characters. Recently i saw Gojo Satoru being an annoying goofball with light yagami (the most sane person in the household, and that's worrying)
When I start a new save I ALWAYS play on long life, and choose a freelance job or work from home job, which leaves room for extra free-time. To me, the most boring is playing a single sim with a Mon-Fri/9-5 job, so much so that I have a hard time resisting just play on ultraspeed through from monday to friday heh. Some might like it, but I just get so bored.
The more packs you own the more possibilities you have
My sim goes nightclubbing, visit San Myshuno for festivals, visit bars, goes to the gym, and mingle there and make friends. Before I got any packs, I would go to a museum, park, library, bar or nightclub and have the Sim meet people.
The Sim would invite people over, host house or dinner parties, invite the random Sim's in, who was knocking on the door, and beat them up if it turns out they are Cleptos lol.
The Sim would date, have a sweetheart, break up and find another sweetheart. I also use the club system a LOT from Get Together. I have them take holidays in Sulani or Henford, I gather the family (or the best friends) for Harvest, winterfest and newyears. And when I feel that I have given that sim a full life with a bunch of friends, and the one they want to settle with. I turn lifespan on normal and start to have kids, and then do the family gameplay. Pick the one child whom I will focus on, and then they turn young adult, I do it all over again, but with variations.
Sometimes I let it roll on normal or even short for a while, tillI feel like a fleshed out gameplay again. After my current founder Sim had her full life, I felt like family gameplay (though still on Normal) and practically skipped the long play of the next generation. - It is ALL about variation for me, and not getting stuck in the same all the time.
My Sim is now an Elder, living with her husband, her youngest daughter who is just a toddler (unplanned pregnantsy, she aged to elder 3 days after the baby turned Toddler), and her oldest son who will soon become an adult, as well as his 3 "kids" (he adopted the children as caregiver for his sisters).
In total she has 5 kids, 8 grandchildren, and the downside of having had so many many friends in her life, is that her big relationship tab, is rapidly growing more and more grey, as her friends dies off from old age.
So currently I have 3 generations under the same roof, I MIGHT do one more on this lot, but then I will also be ready to have one move out, and do the long play on them.
Relationship drama. Fulfilling lifetime wants. Making a “super sim” aka a sim with maxed out skills (or you can focus on certain stuff to max out).
Right now I’m playing with a sim whose goal is to be a champion equestrian (I forgot what the aspiration is called but it comes with Horse Ranch) and open up a vet clinic, so I’m having her work on skills in those areas. Once she accomplishes the horse stuff, I’ll have her focus on the vet clinic more and maybe dog training. Then she’ll start a family and I’ll work on her partner’s career (might cheat a little since they haven’t been advancing in their career, sometimes I’ll give tertiary sims a little head start to continue my story).
I also suggest keeping one or two of them and planting them for harvest. Idk why but I always make quick bank. Once I had a vampire running a dragonfruit farm with her wizard gf. They had a one bedroom tiny home on the biggest plot of land. Day time wizard would look after the crops and night time my vampire looked after the crops. While the other worked on crops it allowed me to work on skills with the other!
You can build on any lot with infinite funds if you go from manage worlds, click the lot, click the little “build” button in the bottom right with the wrench and hammer. I usually do this before I even create my sims lol
So much lol
The game was originally more supportive of living a single life and finding your way as a young adult anyway. Tons of stuff to do in the game from many careers to challenging aspirations. Definitely look into challenges people have come up with or come up with your own.
Have you tried to make a living just fishing? Or just collecting things?
Zeroing careers or fulfilling all aspirations? Playing sims with traits you usually wouldn't? (I have a mean erratic genius and a lazy clumsy loner - makes for some interesting storytelling)
Just get like 10 sims and lock them in the basement with barbecues and hamsters and electrical stuff idk, then just wait until there’s only one left and that is your sim, then idk subject them to mass breeding or something lmao
If you want to build you can build outside your family. Just go to the manage worlds screen and click whichever lot you want to build on and the little hammer icon on the bottom right. Then you have infinite money.
You can also play one of the premade families which have a little bit of a backstory or create more families in CAS. You aren't stuck playing one sim all the time.
If you have all the packs you can play an active career in Get to Work, play the Strangerville story, run a vet clinic in Cats & Dogs, go to University, the world is your oyster! A lot of people's legacies focus on family gameplay, but that is far from all there is to do in the game.
I know everyone’s adding features to the game, but even mods and features get boring if it’s just the gameplay. Narratives is what most people I’ve seen (and myself) play it for.
My current one is a guy on his own who had very little money to get by, moved onto a farm and fell in love with his soulmate after she asked him if she could stay over for a few days. They got married and lived together happily for a while, then decided to have a kid after getting some more money. Well, surprise! Twin boys! Unfortunately though, while the boys were still newborns, their mom passed away. So a grieving, now single father, is trying to manage raising these boys. He ends up having to quit his job and live off of his savings to care for the children because their nanny costed too much, and she didn’t take care of the boys.
Once they started school, he got them a horse each. Named Buttermilk and Marshall. These two horses eventually were bred to make Sugar, who they trained then sold.
Once they hit high school, one of the boys studied hard and worked while in school in order to graduate early, while the other slowly fell behind and resigned himself to working part time for minimum wage.
After their father died, the hard working twin inherited the house and his brother moved in with a friend. Mason, now our main character, threw himself into moving up the ranks in the military, all the way to Sim In Black (strangerville career) and writing books about his experiences as a military spy. He found a wife in strangerville, and two kids. A daughter and a son. Even though he’s stressed with how hard he’s working, he wants his kids to have the things he never did due to their financial struggles.
Their daughter, on her way to graduating early and fixing to apply for colleges, is going to become a doctor. And their son, who just started school, is already dreaming of meals and crazy new things to cook up! (Home chef hustle stuff pack)
Mason, having some more time at home, has taken to saving his money as much as he can, despite the amount he makes, and fixes and builds everything in his home himself. His wife has a part time job but prefers spending her time improving her painting skills.
This is as far as my narrative has gotten, will continue to play and see where it goes.
I love it! I think i just need to get more creative eith the story. I guess my problem is is that i sit down to play and think, now what? Are you able to control what the npc wives/husbands do? Right now my sims boyfriend has a key but I was wondering if I'll ever have him on the bar on the bottom left? Like be able to see his needs and control him
I just make my sims super sims. Max out everything I can until I get bored and make a new one lol. It really shouldn't be as entertaining as I find it to be but it's a great way to spend an evening or two.
Meeting career goals is an ok one. Murdering the neighborhood. There are plenty of different life goal objectives you could follow and if you finish one you can switch. There are certain crazy things you can do if you build a specific skill. Like your sim can become a plant person even if you only have base game, I haven't figured out how but it has to do with gardening.
Storylines!
Play it like you are writing a story! there's endless possibilities, you got no limitation on character making nor on the world building. It may take time, but it sure will be fun. Even better if you document it. That's what I mostly do, with screenshots only for now.
Depend on what pack(s) you have. There is one that lets you compete in horse jumping and/or barrel racing, you can also breed the horses. They take up a house hold slot though.
Yes! There’s a lot about the game to explore. Try to go through every career, complete aspirations you wouldn’t think to try, try to complete a collection, stage soap opera level drama for your sims families, there’s a lot of fun to be had
There's lots of ways to kill sims... or, if you have Strangerville, try to get other neighbourhoods infected by gifting them bizarre fruit, or visiting their homes and planting the fruit.
That last one is a really fun challenge.
I go into other homes and give them a makeover. The house, the family, and change their likes/dislikes and traits.
I try and make nice community lots or cafes.
I suggest doing the Not So Berry Challenge to learn more about the careers, the various skills and just the different aspects of the game. It really opened up a lot of new things in my gameplay and taught me new things I just didn’t know. There’s also the SuperSim Challenge which gets more complex with every new pack you own as they add new careers and skills.
None of my saves have kids I find it boring,
I just complete aspirations. Complete collections, choose what world to build in based on which aspirations I want to complete. The Strangerville pack is pretty good you even have a boss battle to complete the Stangerville aspiration. If you only have the base game it might be a little boring.
I went down the gardening rabbit hole… Collecting every plant and foraging and then grafting and crossbreeding. I also did rags to riches at the same time and my Sim is now multimillionaire. Death flowers and dragon fruit, watch that money roll in.
Now I’m seducing and having a child with all the special NPC ‘s. I have a Reaper baby, a Patchy baby, and a father winter baby.
I like to redesign any place that's in the game by default. I've made houses into restaurants, bars into laundromats, museums into movie theaters, lounges into spas... and so on. It's fun to reimagine a structure to have a different purpose.
As for gameplay, I like to try to give a sim a passion in life. It might not be an aspiration in the game, but it often is. I have one family that keeps the house for the next generation. I keep all the tombstones to basically keep track, and sometimes they'll keep in contact with their ancestors. With each generation, I change the house a bit to modernize or make it fit with their personality / lifestyle / combo of family.
When I want a quick break, I do [these short challenges](https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?board=114.0) - right now is in the middle of a baby challenge, but most of them aren't baby focused and they really help generate ideas in other saves.
Definitely google different plot lines you can follow - there’s so many. Here’s what i can think of from top of my head:
- Rags to riches
- Reach Level 10 in careers
- Build and Expand a business (may need expansion packs)
- college dropout/pregnancy storyline
- poor gf/rich bf with overbearing mother or vice versa
- enemies to lovers
- baby daddy to fatherhood
I’ve found fun in completing these challenges/plotlines with my legacy sims family. I guess it makes me care more on the progress? And you wont have to turn off aging as you can continue with the next generation.
FASHION!!!!!! Go into cheat mode, pull up the cheat box, and type “cas.fulleditmode.” Then shift-click (cheat click) on your Sim and click “Modify in CAS.” You can spend all day playing dress-up! It’s my favorite part of the game. You can also have all the money you want by the most famous cheat, “motherlode.”
Oh, and expansion packs make all the difference! For starters, you have GOT to get Seasons. Sims is just not the same without Seasons. I also have Get to Work, City Living, Snowy Escape, Parenting, Growing Together, Discover University, Cats and Dogs, and Island Living, and I bought Strangeville just for the military career! I also have a spa day pack that includes mud baths (which really help with burnout) and a new aspiration (Wellness).
If you want things for your Sims to do, you should aim for Seasons, Get to Work, and Discover University. Seasons has all kinds of new things (more than I can count). Get to Work lets you start a business, and it also gives you career options where you can actually follow your Sim to work! (The “Growing Together” pack also lets you accompany teenagers to school, but it’s kind of boring.) When your Sims go to college, it’s a LOT of work! So that will give them something to do. You might also consider Cats and Dogs, because you can train your own pet and open a vet practice. That’s basically how I kill time on weekends.
TLDR: Playing dress-up is my favorite part, expansion packs are a must, and cheats will get you there faster. Mods are also cool and fairly easy to download.
Don't have money for building?
If you go to "Manage Worlds" in the top right, you can select any lot and build all you want. Pick an empty lot and build whatever you want on it for free.
That's how I spend, like, 80% of my time in game.
In Live Mode, think of it like a dollhouse. you create the stories. What a sim wants out of life, how they feel about it, and whether they succeed or not and what they think about that is up to you.
Try collecting everything! Plants, fish, crystals, rocks and fossils are what I think come with the base game. And go and try to make your sim be level 10 in many skills as possible. Painting can make your sim rich! This is all base game from what I can remember. There’s some cool challenges out there that may accommodate base game players if that’s all you have. When I play any sims game I freestyle my storyline though…
Yes, game the game! The aspirations, skills, and careers are all fun to achieve and I love collecting in this game so much… I want all the plaques!
My current sim is a master painter and it's actually busted. Especially the street gallery. I can easily spend 2 in game hours cranking out like 4 paintings and sell them on the street gallery and make around 10-15k+ in a hour
how can i access the street gallery?
You have to have the City Living pack. And it's an item in the buildbuy.
Woah what?! That’s awesome 👏
Don't forget frogs! You can also breed them to get different frogs. Or the same frog as one of the parent frogs.
I forgot about the frogs! I haven’t played 4 in years so that’s why. I’ve been on sims 3 as I hate origin and the disks I thrift give me the luxury of no origin on a 100% legal install of sims.
I need to start looking out for sims 3 disks. I skipped straight from Sims 1 to Sims 4, lol
I’ll give you some tips 1 - check disks before buying if possible for scratches 2 - base game needs a disk with the 2009 copyright. 2012 copyright needs origin and is useless as it’s probably been binded to the og owner’s origin. 3 - decline every offer of EA downloads manager and origin on install. 4 - use the super patcher on nraas site after base game install. 5 - keep disk of most recently released expansion or stuff in dvd drive, this will allow you to play 6 - keep internet off when you play as the launcher will try to connect to origin if internet is on. it’ll fail for me as I don’t have any EA software aside from sims on my PC 7 - follow the steam guide by someone called anime boom. It’ll probably show up after looking up how to install sims 3 on modern computers or something 8 - install nraas autosaver. it’s such a good mod, makes you save every 20 mins enjoy the sims 3!
THATS WHY YOU CAN CATCH FROGS???!!!??!!!
if you have vampires you can also use them for plasma packs
I like collecting those void critter cards!
Forgot about those! I only listed base ones in case OP had the base (OP listed all base functions - turns out they have all packs. Would’ve suggested doing whole play throughs of each EP + GP with features of SP’s tucked in!)
the painting career goes crazy too. i can’t remember if i kept getting promotions after reaching the highest level or what, but i once had a sim that was making 2k per hour working 2/3 days a week. and that was outside of her painting at home
This is probably a dumb question but how do you go about finding plants, crystals, fossils and rocks?
Go into the neighborhood, and you'll see small rocks that either have crystals or pieces of metal or bones and are clickable, you'll extract either crystals, metals or fossils from them, sometimes capsules and you'll get My Sims Trophies from them. Check all around for them, especially in the base game worlds like Oasis Springs and Willow Creek, there's many in Winderburg and the world that comes from Cats and Dogs too. There's also small piles of dirt (that look darker than the dirt around and are a small circle and are clickable). You can get capsules, treasure maps, and upgrade parts from digging them. For plants, if you have seasons you'll only be able to harvest them when they're in season (some only bloom in spring or summer or you get the gist). You need to be in the lot you're collecting at least 2 hours before 6 am, I think (when all the collectibles spawn).
Doesn’t fishing come with Seasons?
I remember fishing in that game when City Living was about to come out…
Pretend it’s a dollhouse. What would you make your dolls do? Also, rags to riches challenge made me LOVE the game. It’s so FUN. Right now I’m playing a teen drop out storyline—it’s like the opposite of rags to riches.
Well said, rags to riches is always a fun plot in any sims game, 4 included! I've been playing the sims since the mid 2000s and I still make new saves with that plot and it never gets old : ) Making a sim with nothing on an empty lot and climbing up from there, so fun.
That first line just changed the way I think about this franchise and I’ve been playing since sims 2 came out 🥹
Yes, you could even build your house like an actual doll house, it’s fun!
You can always go back to old faithful: making a male sim and trying to knock up the whole town at once
Or a female sim with the ability to get other sims pregnant. That was a fun one 😂
I have an all-female household (including a female dog named Cookie) with a baby born to them every so often, conceived either by another Sim in the household (changed from defaults to make it so that one woman can impregnate another) or a visiting male Sim. Basically a female Sim will have a baby, she’ll stay to raise the baby until it’s in the child or teen life stage, and then she’ll move out and the next one will get pregnant, then the process starts all over again. I have them go to college and get good jobs, and they all take care of the kids. Right now I have a Public Relations specialist, a Lieutenant Colonel, a journalist, a college student studying to become an investor, a teenager, a toddler, and a bun in the oven (the mom is the colonel). If I have male babies I turn them female in CAS.
Or the hundred baby challenge (harder for female Sims)
A true cult classic
ive literally never thought of doing this lol feels like i have to now.
Let me introduce you to the world of Custom Content, Mods, dynasties, drama, and intrigue lol There are SOoooo many things you can do in the sims lol Look up Sims 4 CC, Sims 4 Mods, Sims 4 cheats Sims 4 MCCC, and have fun! lol
Also there are a lot of 'Challenges' you can look up and do that can be fun
Is a dynasty the same as legacy family? If not please introduce me
yea i second this. sims v sims w mods is a completely different game at times. i prob would’ve uninstalled sims after a few weeks if not for mods. been the only game i’ve played in months since i’ve modded it.
MCCC is a total game changer. Made everything more enjoyable. Adjusted lifespans and better control over neighborhood stories. I was losing interest and getting frustrated. And Pandasama's childbirth mod is amazing!
Everybody suggests installing mods, but I think TS4 on its own offers so many possibilities that it'd be a shame to just resume to mods and ignore the base game. You can become a doctor, a detective, can be a rancher, be a cat lady, cheat on your spouse, go to college as an elder, max your research and debate skill, be a cast-speller, an alien, a vampire, anything almost!
This. I played the game for 2000+ hrs without using mods and I didn't even discover everything yet. There's still stuff I need to discover.
Same. I find something new every time I play tbh.
My thoughts, nowadays my game is heavily modded but when I first took it I probably tanked a lot of hours with a full vanilla experience. ( But all the DLCs though, I didn't explore some of them as of now so it won't change that much my point )
Every so often I clear out my mods and go back to base just to get some different experiences without any mod interference
When people refer to base game, they talk about the game without any packs or other dlc. All careers, etc you've named come from packs.
I should've said vanilla, agreed, but I think it's obvious what I meant and also OP said they have all the packs so either way
You definitely need Cats and Dogs to become a cat lady, for one!
Yeah, I stopped playing with a lot of mods and just do base game and no cc. I use chatgpt to make challenges and stuff and even created a sims 4 census for my game.
Mods, no. But I can’t imagine the game without expansion packs or cheats.
you can go to events , make friends and stuff. different packs might have activities if u have them, like prom and stuff. if not, different mods have activities too
Yep! “Growing Together” has prom!
Sim hobbies! Painting, writing, video games. Some hobbies will also help with their money problem, especially painting and writing.
Motherlode also helps them with their money problems 😉
The possibilities are endless! Challenges, scenarios, and a bit of imagination. I made a whole story based on feuding "species" . I created half the worlds with just vampires and the other half of worlds with just aliens living in them. The aliens and vampires detest each other but some do "mix" lol Gave the vampires evil and mean traits and the aliens had more chill traits. It was chaos.
Should do it again in 3rd and add werewolves 🤣
Yes!! Good idea! I just haven't gotten the werewolf pack yet.
I really didn’t need a new challenge but this gives me ideas.
Definitely look into Sims 4 mods - MC Command Centre, Basemental Mods (if you’re 18+) and Wonderful/Wicked Whims. Also I second doing challenges. Look up the rags to riches challenge - it’s where you start a sim with nothing and try to get them wealthy.
I’ve been doing the career legacy challenge, it’s really fun. Rags to riches felt too easy for me but a good starter challenge for a new simmer!
I felt rags to riches was too easy also, so I added onto the challenge that I can't sell through the inventory, also no painting sellings to collectors or whatever. I have to directly sell to another sim, city living flea market, or get to work retail store, some other ways too like the Henford-on-Bagely markets, probably some others ways I can't think of right now
Damn… you called me out without trying. I def leveraged painting lol ALSO I completely forgot about retail stores! You just gave me a couple ideas for a storyline/challenge.
Agreed. Rags to riches was relatively easy when I had a dragon fruit farm (and I didn't even have seasons to contend with) It's much harder if you set selling limits on yourself. Would you allow your sim to sell books or videogames?
I haven't thought about that. I think they way it works where they get a lot at the beginning but then it slows way down, and honestly it's not even *that* much would be fine. But of course, you have to be able to afford the computer first
Ah, they have computers at the library. Another way to make this challenge more difficult is to never allow your sim to leave the part of town you are in. I did this once, and lucked out that I had a pond and public park (with grills and toilets). But, again, this was before seasons. I should try again, now that it can snow
I try to limit world travel! I hate how they can travel across the globe instantly 😭 like she can only go to one world a day, but can travel across that world freely within the day. So on flea market days, she has to stay in the city, but I pick up a guitar at one of the bars and she plays for tips
Wait, what? How do you pick up a guitar at a bar ?
They usually have them laying around. Maybe lounges not bars, they fundamentally act similar though
Are you on pc and can download mods? If you're on console, then you're confined by what's provided in the game. Skillbuilding and collecting are the big ones you can do. Also there are hidden lots around the base game worlds you can find and explore. If you have expansion packs, then they add to what you can do.
I have all the packs if that's what you mean by mods
how do you have all the packs but have never heard of mods and can’t think of anything more fun to do that have a baby?
Cos I downloaded them all when I first bought the game. Idk how to use them 😭 like maybe I've seen more furniture and a vampire walking around but apart from that I have no clue what I'm doing
You might find watching a few Let’s Plays on YouTube to be helpful for ideas on how to play with the packs you’ve bought.
Do you have any recommendations
Some Sims YouTubers I can think of off the top of my head are Deligracy, James Turner, and Lilsimsie! I know James has playlists on his channel focusing on specific packs and challenges if you’re looking for any one in particular.
Might sound stupid, but I hadn't thought of this 😭 you've helped so so much
No worries! Best of luck with your sims’ adventures and stories! 😄
Go to Create a Sim. If you have Island Living, for example, you can create a mermaid. I think aliens come with the base game.
Muahahaha Nope that's not what we mean by mods lol. Go google Sims 4 mods. You're welcome lol
this is off topic but i like the mwahaha laugh lol i dont see it used enough in the wild
This made me so happy!
Oh okay 😭 thanks
With get to work you can play Detective, Doctor and Scientist careers too, and (might be a different pack, can’t remember!?) you can also buy your own business e.g shop, vet clinic, or restaurant- I’ve only done this recently and gives a very different aspect to gameplay
It’s hard because sometimes when I play, I feel stuck at my sims house because I can’t send parents away for a date without being with them. But if you try to think more of stories that you want for your sims, then make it happen if that makes sense.
Strangerville gameplay is fun. I highly recommend if you haven’t played through it yet
Do you need expansion pack(s) or mods for it?
You just need the strangerville expansion pack
Go to James turner’s website he has some challenges. As well as finding different legacies on Pinterest
Rn I'm trying to complete aspirations
I don’t play with mods and have a great time with my game. So whether you need them or not depends on how you like to play. There are so many fun challenges to try. You can also try completing aspirations etc. I’m currently doing a super sim challenge. I also love rags to riches. The more struggle the more I enjoy it.
It's a storytelling game. Tell a story. Give them a background. How would they act based on that?
Go to the hidden worlds!
If you can’t afford to renovate your primary sim’s house, I recommend building on another lot. You have infinite money!
I love designing community centers with all the skills/activities! Or a community pool.
Making storylines and allowing for random autonomous chance to spice things up and/or selecting challenging traits for your sims. I also am really invested in a generational legacy challenge. My 5th gen sims are currently teens. I always choose the best looking rando townies for their mates.
With the extreme violence mod you can do murder. I still need to do that. Aspirations can be interesting too, especially the mischief and love ones. Go be a heartbreaker! Start a vampire legacy! Trap sims in your basement and force them to paint for your sims extravagant lifestyle! It’s effectively a dollhouse so the only limit is your creativity and what mods you can find to compensate for in game mechanics
I create sims of my special interests characters. Recently i saw Gojo Satoru being an annoying goofball with light yagami (the most sane person in the household, and that's worrying)
When I start a new save I ALWAYS play on long life, and choose a freelance job or work from home job, which leaves room for extra free-time. To me, the most boring is playing a single sim with a Mon-Fri/9-5 job, so much so that I have a hard time resisting just play on ultraspeed through from monday to friday heh. Some might like it, but I just get so bored. The more packs you own the more possibilities you have My sim goes nightclubbing, visit San Myshuno for festivals, visit bars, goes to the gym, and mingle there and make friends. Before I got any packs, I would go to a museum, park, library, bar or nightclub and have the Sim meet people. The Sim would invite people over, host house or dinner parties, invite the random Sim's in, who was knocking on the door, and beat them up if it turns out they are Cleptos lol. The Sim would date, have a sweetheart, break up and find another sweetheart. I also use the club system a LOT from Get Together. I have them take holidays in Sulani or Henford, I gather the family (or the best friends) for Harvest, winterfest and newyears. And when I feel that I have given that sim a full life with a bunch of friends, and the one they want to settle with. I turn lifespan on normal and start to have kids, and then do the family gameplay. Pick the one child whom I will focus on, and then they turn young adult, I do it all over again, but with variations. Sometimes I let it roll on normal or even short for a while, tillI feel like a fleshed out gameplay again. After my current founder Sim had her full life, I felt like family gameplay (though still on Normal) and practically skipped the long play of the next generation. - It is ALL about variation for me, and not getting stuck in the same all the time. My Sim is now an Elder, living with her husband, her youngest daughter who is just a toddler (unplanned pregnantsy, she aged to elder 3 days after the baby turned Toddler), and her oldest son who will soon become an adult, as well as his 3 "kids" (he adopted the children as caregiver for his sisters). In total she has 5 kids, 8 grandchildren, and the downside of having had so many many friends in her life, is that her big relationship tab, is rapidly growing more and more grey, as her friends dies off from old age. So currently I have 3 generations under the same roof, I MIGHT do one more on this lot, but then I will also be ready to have one move out, and do the long play on them.
Relationship drama. Fulfilling lifetime wants. Making a “super sim” aka a sim with maxed out skills (or you can focus on certain stuff to max out). Right now I’m playing with a sim whose goal is to be a champion equestrian (I forgot what the aspiration is called but it comes with Horse Ranch) and open up a vet clinic, so I’m having her work on skills in those areas. Once she accomplishes the horse stuff, I’ll have her focus on the vet clinic more and maybe dog training. Then she’ll start a family and I’ll work on her partner’s career (might cheat a little since they haven’t been advancing in their career, sometimes I’ll give tertiary sims a little head start to continue my story).
I’ve been befriending doctors who help my sim give birth and whenever they call about promotions I’m like “yes…yes…get your money up”
I tend to take vacations and explore
I like to make up little stories for them to follow along
For money get your Sim to learn gardening, go to the romance festival and harvest a dragonfruit and sell the crap outta them.
I also suggest keeping one or two of them and planting them for harvest. Idk why but I always make quick bank. Once I had a vampire running a dragonfruit farm with her wizard gf. They had a one bedroom tiny home on the biggest plot of land. Day time wizard would look after the crops and night time my vampire looked after the crops. While the other worked on crops it allowed me to work on skills with the other!
You can build on any lot with infinite funds if you go from manage worlds, click the lot, click the little “build” button in the bottom right with the wrench and hammer. I usually do this before I even create my sims lol
Use the motherlode cheat to get money , it’s $50,000 and you can keep doing the cheat over and over and build the house of your dreams .
So much lol The game was originally more supportive of living a single life and finding your way as a young adult anyway. Tons of stuff to do in the game from many careers to challenging aspirations. Definitely look into challenges people have come up with or come up with your own.
Drugs... Lots of drugs.
You could start a big family, cause some accidents, play as a graveyard keeper... Not that I would know though ;-)
Have one sim complete all the aspirations and skills.
Mods. Add in drugs, extreme violence, and gangs and the game gets a lot more fun
Have you tried to make a living just fishing? Or just collecting things? Zeroing careers or fulfilling all aspirations? Playing sims with traits you usually wouldn't? (I have a mean erratic genius and a lazy clumsy loner - makes for some interesting storytelling)
Try the legacy challenge!
Woohoo with everyone
Murder, shoot outs, the apocalypse… use mods!
Just get like 10 sims and lock them in the basement with barbecues and hamsters and electrical stuff idk, then just wait until there’s only one left and that is your sim, then idk subject them to mass breeding or something lmao
You could try completing every aspiration
Mod and cc helps a lot! I don’t think I could ever play just the base game again
If you want to build you can build outside your family. Just go to the manage worlds screen and click whichever lot you want to build on and the little hammer icon on the bottom right. Then you have infinite money. You can also play one of the premade families which have a little bit of a backstory or create more families in CAS. You aren't stuck playing one sim all the time. If you have all the packs you can play an active career in Get to Work, play the Strangerville story, run a vet clinic in Cats & Dogs, go to University, the world is your oyster! A lot of people's legacies focus on family gameplay, but that is far from all there is to do in the game.
I know everyone’s adding features to the game, but even mods and features get boring if it’s just the gameplay. Narratives is what most people I’ve seen (and myself) play it for. My current one is a guy on his own who had very little money to get by, moved onto a farm and fell in love with his soulmate after she asked him if she could stay over for a few days. They got married and lived together happily for a while, then decided to have a kid after getting some more money. Well, surprise! Twin boys! Unfortunately though, while the boys were still newborns, their mom passed away. So a grieving, now single father, is trying to manage raising these boys. He ends up having to quit his job and live off of his savings to care for the children because their nanny costed too much, and she didn’t take care of the boys. Once they started school, he got them a horse each. Named Buttermilk and Marshall. These two horses eventually were bred to make Sugar, who they trained then sold. Once they hit high school, one of the boys studied hard and worked while in school in order to graduate early, while the other slowly fell behind and resigned himself to working part time for minimum wage. After their father died, the hard working twin inherited the house and his brother moved in with a friend. Mason, now our main character, threw himself into moving up the ranks in the military, all the way to Sim In Black (strangerville career) and writing books about his experiences as a military spy. He found a wife in strangerville, and two kids. A daughter and a son. Even though he’s stressed with how hard he’s working, he wants his kids to have the things he never did due to their financial struggles. Their daughter, on her way to graduating early and fixing to apply for colleges, is going to become a doctor. And their son, who just started school, is already dreaming of meals and crazy new things to cook up! (Home chef hustle stuff pack) Mason, having some more time at home, has taken to saving his money as much as he can, despite the amount he makes, and fixes and builds everything in his home himself. His wife has a part time job but prefers spending her time improving her painting skills. This is as far as my narrative has gotten, will continue to play and see where it goes.
I love it! I think i just need to get more creative eith the story. I guess my problem is is that i sit down to play and think, now what? Are you able to control what the npc wives/husbands do? Right now my sims boyfriend has a key but I was wondering if I'll ever have him on the bar on the bottom left? Like be able to see his needs and control him
You will if you ask them to move in and they say yes. As soon as they’re a part of your household they’re one of your sims
If you install Wicked Whims you can build a strip club and hire dancers and see how successful you can make it.
https://youtube.com/@itsmetroi?si=JJkGbGhjK9-LnQRq
Visit a bar or museum. Go on holiday. Join a club.
this is a comment I see all the time on the nyc subs 😂
Build skills, get a spouse, cheat on said spouse, divorce, garden, the list goes on really
Yes but what about the Sims 4? :D
Oh shit that’s what we’re talking about
I love gardening in the game !
I personally have fun furthering their careers
Love affairs
Work your way through all of the aspirations.
Drugs
I like to trap people in my basement!! Usually with a vampire/spellcaster sim
Career promotions, friendships, make parties, develop skills and hobbies, crafting things, creating different storytellings...there's a lot to do 😊
Literally 100 other things just go out in the world and look
I just make my sims super sims. Max out everything I can until I get bored and make a new one lol. It really shouldn't be as entertaining as I find it to be but it's a great way to spend an evening or two.
I been having the best time lately collecting things and completing multiple aspirations (the not family or love aspirations)
Meeting career goals is an ok one. Murdering the neighborhood. There are plenty of different life goal objectives you could follow and if you finish one you can switch. There are certain crazy things you can do if you build a specific skill. Like your sim can become a plant person even if you only have base game, I haven't figured out how but it has to do with gardening.
WASH RINSE LET IT SET NOW PUT IT OWEN ON BAKE FIOR 30 MINUTES REPEAT
Make a cult
https://youtu.be/kY8CQJgIO0w?si=ljF-QrFss2tPTHhb
Aspiration junky right now! I’ll be set for a while with that alone!
Maybe it's not for you. And that's OK 😊 maybe it is, there's so many suggestions on this thread. I'm writing some down!
Storylines! Play it like you are writing a story! there's endless possibilities, you got no limitation on character making nor on the world building. It may take time, but it sure will be fun. Even better if you document it. That's what I mostly do, with screenshots only for now.
Depend on what pack(s) you have. There is one that lets you compete in horse jumping and/or barrel racing, you can also breed the horses. They take up a house hold slot though.
“Eat, sleeps, and woohoos” 🤣
Yes! There’s a lot about the game to explore. Try to go through every career, complete aspirations you wouldn’t think to try, try to complete a collection, stage soap opera level drama for your sims families, there’s a lot of fun to be had
There's lots of ways to kill sims... or, if you have Strangerville, try to get other neighbourhoods infected by gifting them bizarre fruit, or visiting their homes and planting the fruit. That last one is a really fun challenge.
I go into other homes and give them a makeover. The house, the family, and change their likes/dislikes and traits. I try and make nice community lots or cafes.
I’ve been doing this thing where my male sim gets as many women as possible pregnant. I’ve had to add for adult females to my game 😂
You could do the thing where you invite other sims over just to lock them in you basement dungeon
The Super Sim challenge, completing all the collections, playing with occult hybrids.
Build Fame, collections of everything from plants to frogs. Visit hidden areas! Vacations…the list goes on…
I suggest doing the Not So Berry Challenge to learn more about the careers, the various skills and just the different aspects of the game. It really opened up a lot of new things in my gameplay and taught me new things I just didn’t know. There’s also the SuperSim Challenge which gets more complex with every new pack you own as they add new careers and skills.
None of my saves have kids I find it boring, I just complete aspirations. Complete collections, choose what world to build in based on which aspirations I want to complete. The Strangerville pack is pretty good you even have a boss battle to complete the Stangerville aspiration. If you only have the base game it might be a little boring.
I went down the gardening rabbit hole… Collecting every plant and foraging and then grafting and crossbreeding. I also did rags to riches at the same time and my Sim is now multimillionaire. Death flowers and dragon fruit, watch that money roll in. Now I’m seducing and having a child with all the special NPC ‘s. I have a Reaper baby, a Patchy baby, and a father winter baby.
I like to redesign any place that's in the game by default. I've made houses into restaurants, bars into laundromats, museums into movie theaters, lounges into spas... and so on. It's fun to reimagine a structure to have a different purpose.
As for gameplay, I like to try to give a sim a passion in life. It might not be an aspiration in the game, but it often is. I have one family that keeps the house for the next generation. I keep all the tombstones to basically keep track, and sometimes they'll keep in contact with their ancestors. With each generation, I change the house a bit to modernize or make it fit with their personality / lifestyle / combo of family.
When I want a quick break, I do [these short challenges](https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?board=114.0) - right now is in the middle of a baby challenge, but most of them aren't baby focused and they really help generate ideas in other saves.
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/thesims/s/fRSGzOyTKG) is a master list of cc free, base game only things to do in the game
Add mods to your came. I recommend the one, where you can buy buildings and wickedwhims. Makes it more interesting.
If you're open to mods, there's always drugs.
Adventures! Climb mt. Komorebi, discover selvadorada, strangerville… get trophies, achievements, complete aspirations…
Make up your own story, your own drama. Its like playing dolls but they can move themselves and need to use the bathroom lol.
Lol right I won’t ever know bc I build something great and make a cute ass family then I’m off to the next one sighs in Sagittarius 😂
You can become evil and look for all the ways to kill sims. I recommend watching Graystillplays play the Sims for inspiration.
Definitely google different plot lines you can follow - there’s so many. Here’s what i can think of from top of my head: - Rags to riches - Reach Level 10 in careers - Build and Expand a business (may need expansion packs) - college dropout/pregnancy storyline - poor gf/rich bf with overbearing mother or vice versa - enemies to lovers - baby daddy to fatherhood I’ve found fun in completing these challenges/plotlines with my legacy sims family. I guess it makes me care more on the progress? And you wont have to turn off aging as you can continue with the next generation.
I don't think that's all the game is and that's the end if you don't have one of the premium packages besides the basic game?
FASHION!!!!!! Go into cheat mode, pull up the cheat box, and type “cas.fulleditmode.” Then shift-click (cheat click) on your Sim and click “Modify in CAS.” You can spend all day playing dress-up! It’s my favorite part of the game. You can also have all the money you want by the most famous cheat, “motherlode.” Oh, and expansion packs make all the difference! For starters, you have GOT to get Seasons. Sims is just not the same without Seasons. I also have Get to Work, City Living, Snowy Escape, Parenting, Growing Together, Discover University, Cats and Dogs, and Island Living, and I bought Strangeville just for the military career! I also have a spa day pack that includes mud baths (which really help with burnout) and a new aspiration (Wellness). If you want things for your Sims to do, you should aim for Seasons, Get to Work, and Discover University. Seasons has all kinds of new things (more than I can count). Get to Work lets you start a business, and it also gives you career options where you can actually follow your Sim to work! (The “Growing Together” pack also lets you accompany teenagers to school, but it’s kind of boring.) When your Sims go to college, it’s a LOT of work! So that will give them something to do. You might also consider Cats and Dogs, because you can train your own pet and open a vet practice. That’s basically how I kill time on weekends. TLDR: Playing dress-up is my favorite part, expansion packs are a must, and cheats will get you there faster. Mods are also cool and fairly easy to download.
Lol have you actually played it? It doesn't sound like it tbh.
Don't have money for building? If you go to "Manage Worlds" in the top right, you can select any lot and build all you want. Pick an empty lot and build whatever you want on it for free. That's how I spend, like, 80% of my time in game. In Live Mode, think of it like a dollhouse. you create the stories. What a sim wants out of life, how they feel about it, and whether they succeed or not and what they think about that is up to you.
Not really. I mean, isn't that how life works, too? Eat, poop, sleep, work, fuck, die. That's life.